commuting cogitation

This morning on my drive into work I got to thinking about my little sister.

My parents and her in-laws live about 15 minutes from each other in the town where we went to high school. It's a great place, but I can't see myself realistically ever moving back there. Their aerospace engineering industry leaves something to be desired.

But my little sister told me that she and her husband would really like to be back there someday.


So this morning I was picturing what her life might be like if she moves back there, they buy a beautiful farm house out on the agricultural area away from nosy neighbors and they live their life. What would I be doing today if I were living here future, idyllic, pastoral life?


I decided that today would be the day that I make strawberry jam and fresh baked bread while the kids are away at school.


And suddenly living in the place I grew up started to seem absurdly appealing.

Lessons of age

Yesterday the ear doctor told me that Denver has a new radio station...Jammin 101.5. They play all of the best hits from the 90's, so basically every song that comes on reminds me of something from middle school. It's awesome.

Last night as I was driving some teenagers to our weekly church youth group NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK CAME ON THE RADIO! The right stuff...to be exact.

As I excitedly reached for the volume knob a hush fell over the usual teen chatter coming from the back seat.

About 30 seconds into the song one of the kids said, "who is this?"

To which I excitedly responded, "New Kids on the Block. Theirs was the first concert I ever went to.  My dad took me to see them when I was 8 years old and he bought me a blue bubblegum ice cream cone at the show"


The kind of looked at me with blank stares until one of the kids started singing the lyrics to the LFO song Summer Girls that references New Kids on the Block. So these kids were referencing a song written in 1999 in order to reference a boy band that released a song in 1988.


Yikes, I felt old.



Also, as  I listened to a song I once thought was awesome I realized that 8 year olds may not have the best taste in music...

...and that my dad is a hero for taking me to that horrible concert...

...and that maybe I shouldn't sing Bieber's Never Say Never at the top of my lungs to annoy my husband quite as frequently...

sweet

Today I got so mad at a rude coworker that I had to go sit in my car and simmer down.

Yup, I put myself on time out.


While in self-imposed time out I yelled at him, I reasoned with him, and I cried just a little bit in my frustration and hurt feelings.


As a result all morning I've been in a funk. The funkyness lingered all morning. It lingered through meetings and to-do list making. It lingered after I talked to my mom and heard my awesome new nephew's little cries on the phone. It lingered after I indulged in Mac n Cheese from Panera. It even lingered as I walked through Banana Republic with $20 gift certificate and 40% off coupon in hand.

It lingered all the way until I was in the car driving back to the office and the smooth beats of Bell Biv Davoe started thumping from my Bose speakers. The funkyness of the morning was totally and utterly erased by the funky beats and smooth rhymes reminding me that sometimes girls can be POISON.

travel journal

While in California my wonderful in-laws decided to get both the ear doctor and I new phones! Hooray! No more stupid old phone that wouldn't let me text the ear doctor! No more waiting for 30 seconds to let google maps pull up! Life will again be livable!

Since we already have a macbook and an ipad, we decided to both get iphones so they can all sync together. I got the white and he got the black.


And the first app I got? Instagram of course. I was tired of everyone else's phone pictures looking so cool while mine were standard and boring.  So here are the highlights from the trip...all taken at the Nixon library:

 Me in front of a piece of the Berlin Wall

My reflection in the sun shield of an astronaut helmet

 Us in front of Nixon's boyhood home (which is so darling and still sitting in it's original location)

The ear doctor getting off Army One...the president's helicopter

Twinners

We recently took a trip to California to see the ear doctor's parents.

Can I just tell you how great it is that my in-laws live is such an awesome place? Because it's awesome. I'm so glad they live somewhere that people actually choose to vacation.

On our way out there we were standing in line for the Southwest cattle call and there was a classy looking middle aged man standing in front of us. We were B25 and 26 and he was B23. I knew there would be another person about to walk up to us and stand in between.

A few minutes later another middle aged man walked up, presented his B24 boarding pass...made a few pleasant comments to the guy in front of us and took his place.

Simultaneously, my brain almost exploded. I looked back at the ear doctor and his eyes were the size of silver dollar pancakes. The two guys COULD HAVE BEEN TWINS!

Same age, same build, same hair, same demeanor, SAME OUTFIT!!!!!!!!



They didn't even seem to notice that they'd met their doppelganger. I was so blown away that I asked the ear doctor to take a picture so the moment could be immortalized forever.

cured meats

Last Sunday night on the Amazing race the contestants were in Italy. During the leg, they had a choice between scrubbing the dirt off an old statue and tasting/memorizing 14 different kinds of salami. As much as I love getting my powerwash on, I thought this was a no brainer. Taste testing salami in Italy? This task is rapidly moving to the top of my 10-things-I-must-do-before-I-die list.

I couldn't believe there were people on this planet that would rather don a white bunny suit, get down on all fours and scrub. The whole episode I just kept shaking my head in confusion.

But they're on a race. For a million dollars. And I guess if I thought scrubbing would be faster than eating then maybe I'd choose the same thing. But if I didn't win the million dollars, as most of them won't, I would SO annoyed that I decided to spend a warm sunny evening in Turin Italy scrubbing dirt when I could have been standing in a bustling piazza sampling some of the best salami in the world.

If I ever had the chance to be on the race I would hope that instead of doggedly, single-mindedly pursuing the end goal that I would be able to slow down, appreciate the experiences I'm having in the moment...even if they didn't seem the most efficient way to get to the end goal.

Because sometimes in my life the finish tape I had pictured in my mind while I was running the race wasn't really where I ended up when I was done.

Missing you

The ear doctor is out of town at a conference presenting his awesome research. As a result, last night I slept alone in our bed.

My dear husband has a tiny snoring situation. When we first got married I thought we weren’t going to make it because he woke me up all night long; over and over and over again. I couldn’t take it. That is, until we got our fan. The fan saved our marriage in its infancy.

This year for Christmas our in-laws got the ear doctor a humidifier. Denver is the driest place I’ve ever lived in my life and this humidifier has been a game changer. No longer do I wake up in the morning and feel like someone has shoved a triscut up my nose. Glorious!

The effect, however, has been that our bedroom at night is pretty loud. So loud, in fact, that my ear doctor husband was starting to worry about our prolonged exposure to the sound level might have a detrimental effect on our hearing. Don’t worry…he found an sound meter app for his ipad and determined that it was only 60 dB…below the level to worry about.But, to be honest, 60 dB is still pretty loud. It’s about the volume of normal conversation of people standing 3 feet from each other.

So last night when I was trying to sleep by myself I decided that since he wasn’t in bed I wouldn’t turn on the fan or humidifier. I was shocked by how quite the room was without my accustomed babble of invisible people having a conversation on the pillow next to me…

…and really annoyed when the dog’s snores woke me up...once a 1:23 AM and a second time at 3:43.

Anxiously engaged

My front yard right now looks horrible. And not just because it is the end of winter. 

There are tall dead stalks last year’s Russian Sage that didn’t get cut down. Last year’s Iris shoots didn’t get cleaned away in the fall. And not a single leaf that was trapped by the ground cover got thrown away. I got around to pulling out the dead petunia plants that looked so amazing in August, but their sad dead stems are strewn across the front yard grass instead of piled carefully away in a compost heap.  Every single time I park my car in the driveway and look over the patch of earth I call mine I shudder with embarrassment.

My mother’s garden is spectacular. Not just average, or nice, or pleasant…inspirational. And she works at it. Growing up Saturday was yard work day. She was up before dawn, garden shoes on feet and a wide brimmed hat overhead ready to take on the challenge. I’ve never seen someone work so hard or sweat so much while turning earth.  She and my dad instilled in me (and my sister I assume) not only a love of a beautiful yard, but the extreme value of being able to work hard. 

The current state of my front yard makes me feel that I’m not only disappointing my parent by squandering their lessons but also feels like a giant neon sign over my house saying “A lazy woman lives in here” with a big red arrow pointing down. 

Which is probably why my first thought at this beautiful 70 degree Denver day is not about bike riding or lemonade sipping or sandal wearing.

My first thought is, “will I have enough time between leaving work and going to my yoga class to rip all that crap out of the yard?”

In and out

I remember seeing pictures of people in iron lungs. I always thought they looked like some kind of torture device. Rows and rows of poor sick people laying around, trapped in a metal tubes to prevent them from dying.

But, actually, an iron lung is a good thing. An amazing thing. When disease has ravaged a patient's muscles and the diaphragm is no longer strong enough to expand the rib cage and force the lungs to draw in air, this machine does that for them. It helps strengthen weakness when there just isn't anything left to give.


For me, grief is a similar condition of the soul. It can eat away until it feels that taking a carefree breath is next to impossible. When in it's throws, I desperately yearn for there to be something or someone who can just take over for a little bit. Prop me up. Move my feet. Help me move through my normal routine without having to exert the monumental effort it takes to accomplish the mundane tasks on the to-do list.


Lucky, for me, I have that in amazing friends and family.

Admittedly, my experiences with grief have been minuscule compared to some people's. I have not had to personally deal with serious levels of tragedy that change a person. I would never compare what I have been through to serious personal crisis and would never assume to be able to fully comprehend, offer them advice, or attempt to give any kind of critique.

But for me, on my small scale, there is a small part of me that is grateful to have had my crises. Because they give me compassion...and empathy. Because as horrible as it is to be the patient inside the device it is an unbelievably humbling opportunity to be the iron lung for someone you love. To be there when someone else needs help. To be there to do the dishes, cycle the laundry, make the dinner, or have the shoulder of your shirt used as a towel to soak up tears.

How my family operates

If someone in my family has a question or concern we don't turn to wikipedia to find the answer.

For instance:


2 days ago my sister called me to ask what dragon's name was from the movie Pete's dragon instead of looking it up. Her 4 year old daughter remembered that we own the movie and was sure we would know they name. (BTW...his name is Elliot)

My husband is currently filling out a grant application and a lot of questions are interview-y types (ie "what is the  hardest decision you've had to make" or  "where do you see yourself in 5 years"). Instead of relying on only his own ideas we decided to call both his dad (he's been the head of HR in all different companies for years) and my mom (a trained saleswoman who has both given and taken hundreds of interviews in her career)

When my cousin had a concern that her 2 year old son wasn't speaking very many words yet, did I send her some links to some information on the internet? No. I instantly offered my husband's knowledge of child language acquisition and development gained over these last 8 years of graduate study.

I have to admit, when I hurt my shoulder after my ATV accident last spring I did hop over to WebMD to find what could be the potential worst case scenario for the injury. However, I wasn't satisfied with their answers so I called my almost-med-school-graduated brother-in-law for a doctor's exam via skype.

When I wondered why my fingers got so sticky after chopping garlic did I turn to the internet? Nope...my food scientist sister held all the answers I could ever need.

And remember when our garbage disposal broke a few weeks ago? The first call was to my dad to see what he thought was going on...not to youtube to research videos of how to fix it.


Is everyone else's family like this?

What a fool

Last night the ear doctor and I went to dinner at our favorite little Italian place that is 3 blocks from our house.

We go there at least once a week. Their gnocchi is my absolute favorite.

When we were sitting at our table finishing up our dinner a large group of people all came in at once. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed something different about all these people. They had, what I thought, was large dark birthmarks in the middle of their foreheads.

I thought to myself, “well, that’s different” and kept eating.

The group took their seats and I leaned over to the ear doctor and whispered, “Did you see that family that all have a large dark birthmark on their forehead?”

He looked at me like I was the idiot that I AM and replied, “ummm, it’s Ash Wednesday.”

It wasn’t a birthmark, it was ash and they weren’t an abnormally large family, but a group of people who had just left the Catholic church across the street.

I haven’t felt like that big of an idiot in a LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time. It’s a good thing I have the ear doctor around to keep me in check.

Beaming

This morning as we were laying in bed blinking sleep from our eyes we heard the ear doctor’s phone buzz. He reached over to check it out and realized that his friend had texted him to tell him that he’d emailed him.

All of which were received at the exact same moment on his smartphone.

I stumbled off to the bathroom and 15 minutes later, post shower I came out to see my husband’s eyes glowing with excitement.

Turns out two of his friend had already bought them (keep in mind it was 6:38 AM, and the deal was brand new that morning) just bought a deal. 20 rounds of golf plus 7 lessons with a pro for $195 and he wanted the ear doctor to buy one too. That way the three of them could spend their summer afternoons together basking in the Colorado sun and buying overpriced soda from the beer cart girl.

He turned to me and started explaining the deal, but I stopped him mid-description and said, “Yes…let’s buy it”

I think he was a little taken aback by my zero hesitation response.

Little did he know that two weeks earlier the exact same deal had popped up on Groupon. When it did, the wives of the golfers in question came together and decided to buy the deal as a surprise gift for our guys 2 minutes after we found that all the groupons had sold out.

After whipping out the ole credit card and sending the voucher his way my man was BEAMING. The look in his eyes and the excitement radiating from his soul reminded me of that old StoveTop stuffing commercial. The one where the two 10 year olds think they’re tricking their moms by inviting each other to dinner at the other’s house….one at 6 pm the other at 8.

Weekend pro

Why is it that things only go wrong in our house when we're expecting visitors?

Last time my sister came to visit our water heater broke the day before they were supposed to arrive. $500 and a visit from a repair man later it was fixed and we were ready.

Friday night the ear doctor was finished up the dishes and noticed a puddle forming at his feet. He opened the sink cabinet doors and there was water sprayed all over the inside. We flipped the disposal on and were showered with water spraying from a crack in the side of the disposal unit. And we were hosting friends for dinner the next night.

Luckily I married a man who wasn't even phased. Saturday morning he disconnected the whole thing and took it to home depot. Turns out the one we had installed was a crappy Badger1 that people usually put in flipped homes (although ours wasn't flipped). We decided to upgrade to the Badger9.

Yes, we are high rollers.

He had it back and installed in place within an hour.

And I only forgot that there was nothing hooked to the bottom of the sink and turned on the faucet full blast once while he was gone...which in my book is pretty good.

day dreamin

The ear doctor have starting kicking around an idea for starting a restaurant.

We probably won't because having a restaurant seems like the hardest possible job in the world and I'm not sure either of us is really cut out for that kind of thing, but it's kind of fun to day dream about.

As of now, our restaurant would be called PorkPie. And we'd serve pork (bbq) and pie. It'd be old, vintagey and laid back. Nice, but not formal. A place where a bunch of guys wouldn't feel uncomfortable in, yet it was cool enough that a group of women would also consider it for lunch.

I don't know if it's blogs or what, but branding has become a particular interest of mine. As a result, designing the (fake) logo for our (imaginary) business has been really fun. Here is what I came up with first:

I sent it to the ear doctor and he sent me back this:

Which is when I sent him this:

He sent me this:

And I sent this:

I feel like that last one may be moving us farther away from the vibe we're going for, but it's pretty funny...

old dogs can learn new tricks

Getting older is kind of weird. Cool, but weird.

For example:

My dad has always loved football. Even though he didn't have any sons of his own, he still dedicated significant amounts of his free time to coaching little league football. My sister and I were both little league cheerleaders for his team.

Once we got too old for little league, he got an opportunity to coach for a semi-pro football team.

My dad is a guy's guy and always has been. Not macho, per se, but defiantly masculine.


Except today I called him during lunch to talk and I found out he was baking scones. At first I thought maybe someone asked mom to bring something to a church function and then she realized she'd be out of town and he was covering for her.

Nope.

He was baking scones. For himself. For lunch. And that's not all. He has recently become a bread baking aficionado.

I doubt he ever would have done this kind of stuff in his early years, but I think it is so cool that my dad is still learning new hobbies. Weird...but cool.

Boots

Today is the first day since Christmas that it's been really snowy and I've had to go out in the weather. For Christmas, the ear doctor got me not one, but TWO pair of new boots. The fashion pair are buttery soft brown leather...not for snow.

The other pair, the pair I'm wearing and LOVING today are rubber and built for the white stuff.

Can I just tell you how much I love these boots? Everything from the teal stripe around the foot, to the soft shearling lining, to the pull tab on the back to the reflective stripe that wraps around the leg opening...they are PERFECT.

The only thing I need now is more boot socks. These are the socks I use inside my ski boots when I go skiing and they are perfect

LOVE THESE BOOTS!

real life TV

I know there are a lot of people out there who really like the Real Housewives series on Bravo. I am not one of them. I'm not saying that I'm in anyway too cool to watch reality TV...in fact I may have lingered a little longer than the ear doctor would approve of on the Bachelor last night.

But, for some reason, the Real Housewives just don't really interest me.

I think it's because they seem, to me, like grown women acting with the insecurity of high school girls.

And I thought that just wasn't very realistic.

But maybe I'm wrong.


Last night the ear doctor and I went out for dinner at this local Italian place. We sat in a booth in the corner and another group of diners had pulled two tables together and were sitting right next to us. The group consisted of about 8 women in their 40's. Since the dining room wasn't very full when we started eating and our tables were so close together we couldn't help but overhear snippets of their conversation. At first I thought they were a group of coworkers out for dinner together. They seemed nice, friendly and appeared to get along well. They seemed comfortable and happy together.

About 30 minutes later the dining room had filled and we all were tucking into our plates of spaghetti. There was a lull in their conversation and one woman said something like, "well, we did come together to have a meeting so we might as well get started."

To me, this seemed to be even more evidence of some professional relationship. Or maybe they went to the same church and were organizing something. Or a volunteer group or something. I was a bit shocked by what happened next.

One of the women went on the aggressive defensive and started yelling at the group saying how they weren't good friends and were expecting too much from her and how she never felt like she was part of the group. Then another accused her of being a fake friend and how her facebook status was offensive.

This craziness started getting louder and louder and more and more intense until they were swearing at each other and everyone else in the dining room had fallen silent.

It was the most amazingly awesome/rude/frightening/compelling thing I've seen in a long time. It was like being too horrified by a car accident to turn away. I had to sit there and wonder why they thought what was happening was acceptable to do in public.

I felt like I was watching an episode of the Real Housewives in person.

I guess that show isn't as unrealistic as I originally thought.

Christmas Vacation

It wouldn't be a Katie vacation recap if it wasn't mostly self-portraits. First, we left Denver the day before a huge snow storm hit Colorado. We had clear skies and dry roads all the way down to Santa Fe. Driving for extended periods can make me a little nuts....

We almost ran out of gas as we pulled into town...good thing it's mostly downhill as you drive into Santa Fe. We checked in to our beautiful hotel. I just love places that not only accept dogs but provide treats and staff that fall all over your cute little boxer boy. The hotel was only a block away from the historic center of the city which is so cool. At Christmas they light up the whole square and all the adobe style buildings are lined with luminaries...so cool.

The next morning we went to breakfast at our favorite place in town and the ear doctor humored me by letting me take pictures in front of this cool wall of ironwork.

We all piled back into the truck and pulled into the ear doctor's grandma's driveway just as the sun was going down. They had dinner ready and waiting for us...including my favorite vermicelli salad. It's so good and I ate about a pound of it while I was there.

Between eating and talking the time flew by and before we knew it, it was Christmas morning. Roscoe boy greeted us all decked out for the occasion.

One of the funniest moments of Christmas morning was when my mother in law pulled this beauty out of her stocking. It's a nylon sleeve with a design that you slip on your arm to look like a full sleeve tattoo. Seeing my mother in law all tatted up was HI-LARIOUS!

We spent the time at grandma's house relaxing, eating and we went to the movies almost every single day! Awesome!

After the festivities we packed back up and started the drive home. We were truckin along when we noticed signs for the world's best preserved meteor impact site. That sounded like something to see, so we turned of the freeway to check it out. We drove up to the visitor's center and were getting really excited about seeing the big hole in the desert...until we found out that the admission was $15 per person! Crazy! We decided that was outside out budget...but were still pretty disappointed.

The trip from Denver to Arizona follows the old Route 66 most of the way. Every time we went through a town in the song we couldn't help but bust out in song.  When we got to Winslow, AZ we wen a little crazy, because not only is it in the old swing song, but it's also featured in a song of one of our favorite groups...the EAGLES.

Here the ear doctor is standing on the corner of Winslow, AZ. He's such a fine sight to see. And there's a girl over there in a flat bed ford slowing down to take a look at him.

Self portrait of us and the girl in the ford...

We pulled into our beautiful hotel in Albuquerque and there was some mix up about us bringing out dog into the hotel. I guess someone hadn't noted that we'd need a dog room and they were all filled up. I was scared that we'd have to find somewhere else to stay. Luckily, they decided to upgrade us to one of their beautiful suites. I can't recommend this hotel highly enough.  The next day we walked around Old Town and saw the beautiful church that's been continuously operating for 300 years! It was so awesome.

The last stop we made was to a mormon battalion monument in the middle of nowhere New Mexico.

We were so lucky to have such great weather the whole drive and be able to spend so much time with our family. That's one holiday for the books!

Knowing my limits

Why I never make weight-loss related resolutions for the new year:

With this many goodies laying around it's impossible to not fall off the wagon...

Kind of pathetic

Growing up my parents always got a ton of Christmas cards from their friends. I remember how my mom displaying them for the entire month of December. I can imagine it made her feel awesome to know so many people cared enough about us to spend a quarter and send us a family update.


I think seeing all those cards up must have made an impression on my young mind because every Christmas I find a way to display the well wishes we've received. But, I have to admit, since we haven't ever sent out Christmas cards our tableau isn't really that impressive. In fact, it's kind of like the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of card displays:

Starting from left to right:

1. The card left for us in our milk box from our milkman...not even personally addressed to us
2. A card my husband's advisor gave us...this one is legit
3. A shockingly awesome rainbow card from an old college friend and his wife...this thing is so amazing...literally the most awesome Christmas card I've ever seen
4. A photo card from the ear doctor's office mate...who reads every post I ever write but never comments...
5. A picture card we got in the mail of kids we don't know. It was addressed to the previous owners of our house.
6. A card given to us from the people who run the Christmas tree lot where we bought our symbol of the season
7. A thanksgiving card from ear doctor's grandma...what...we needed more cards to fill the shelf...
8. An invitation to a New Years Eve party